


Armor

by Mosca



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:09:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the things Tali needs to do before she can take off her environmental suit, and a few of the things she needs to do after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/gifts).



> Thanks to Thistle for beta reading. 
> 
> Set during ME2. Written for Sheeana for Femslash '12.

Aliens speak metaphorically of love as a type of illness. Their hearts ache. Fire consumes their digestive tracts. Weevils of madness infest their brains.

Of these matters, quarians speak literally. To touch another person is to court infection. The desire for intimacy is more powerful than the fear of death.

Tali is preparing to be sick. She believes she is ready, but she knows the reality of illness is worse than the memory of it. She caught a fungus on the inside of her mouth once and couldn't eat for two weeks; the ice-cold protein shakes that she survived on burned going down. Another time, a respiratory virus spread to her inner ear, and she coughed herself dizzy for weeks. She fractured her ankle during a mission on the first Normandy and it swelled like the throat of a frog after surgery, a feast for bacteria until Dr. Chakwas could order more effective antibiotics from the Migrant Fleet.

These illnesses map Tali's romantic history. Her first kiss, a plague in her mouth; her first sexual experience, a blow to knock her off balance. The moment she realized she loved Commander Shepard, a fracture in what she knew of herself, an inflammation so great that her body could not contain it, an alien wound that threatened to consume her.

Perhaps Tali is too much of an engineer to be skilled at metaphor.

She was recovering from a minor bronchial infection when she discovered Shepard's feelings for her. Tali tried to prevent Shepard from hearing about her less serious ailments because Shepard has always hovered when she's heard that Tali has been suffering from the least sniffle or itch. Tali stammered her way through their conversation, but Shepard was unflappable as ever, telling Tali how overjoyed she'd been to discover that Tali had survived the first Normandy's destruction, how frightened when the Admirals had threatened to exile her, how frustrated by her own desire to reach through Tali's suit and feel the warmth of her skin.

Tali longs for that feeling, too, enough that she has persuaded Dr. Chakwas to acquire a supply of expensive, dubiously legal prophylactic antibiotics from the Fleet. The drugs cost so much of Tali's stipend that she barely has enough for food. Garrus, who has always shared meals with her, says he doesn't mind picking up the slack. He even comes back from their latest trip to Omega with a box of turian immunity-boosting tea. "It's so strong that some people develop autoimmune conditions when they use it for too long a time," Garrus says, the gleeful nuance of his voice revealing his delight in the irony of this endorsement. 

"An immune system so robust that it attacks healthy tissue," Tali says. "That sounds impossibly alien."

Garrus laughs. "Don't drink it with dinner. The shopkeeper told me it tastes like old socks. I believe he meant _that_ as an endorsement."

"Turians," Tali teases. "If it's not awful, you're not suffering enough."

Garrus digs through his sack of purchases and pulls out a bunch of reddish taproots, holding them by their greens so they dangle in Tali's face. "Real, live naga roots. They might have grown in actual soil. And they're not awful at all. Help me peel them."

Tali never tasted soil-grown food until her pilgrimage. There is a richness to plants that have tasted real water and sunlight, that were once truly alive. For a short time, after she met her first aliens, she believed that most quarians were the same way: hothouse flowers that could never bloom like other species. Since then, she's met enough complacent, dull aliens on planetary colonies to convince her that soil and sunshine affect flavor more than mental constitution.

Before Garrus eats, he mumbles a few ritual words, the remains of an ancient prayer distorted into a near-meaningless string of syllables. Before Tali eats, she swallows an antimicrobial capsule to fight the turian organisms that might be clinging to her meal and sprays an antibiotic up her nose to discourage anything that might fly in when she raises her face mask. The geth taught quarians that prevention works better than prayer.

To prevent love from destroying her, Tali researches medicines and folk remedies from across the Milky Way. She pesters Dr. Chakwas with questions. She builds an armor around her immune system and trains it to kill on sight. Shepard has taught her how to be a soldier, and she will honor that gift by cultivating an army inside herself.

She stops Shepard in a corridor of the Normandy between missions. Shepard seems exhausted: every member of the crew has some old vendetta or family obligation to resolve, and Shepard, endlessly noble, helps with every request. She tells Tali it's a way to encourage loyalty in the crew. "And to make yourself feel loyal to them," Tali adds. She hopes Shepard doesn't detect the note of jealousy in her voice. She wants Shepard to value her above the rest of the crew, even though she knows it's childish.

"We're close to finding the Reapers," Shepard says. "Closer than I've told the crew."

"But you're telling me." Tali smiles under her mask. Quarians don't communicate much through their faces, but a smile is an automatic reaction. As children, quarians learn to smile in their shoulders and wrists, in the angle of their heads, to let their whole bodies radiate joy. "Thank you, Shepard."

"I'm telling you because you and I don't have much time." Shepard lunges forward as if to kiss Tali, then pulls herself back, as if she fears contaminating Tali even through her suit. Or as if she fears that Tali will feel nothing. Quarian suits can be tuned to allow touch sensitivity, so much that the wearer can feel air and water on her skin as if naked. Aliens don't understand this even when they know it, as Shepard does: all they see is a mask.

Tali pulls Shepard into her arms, feeling Shepard's breasts press into her chest, curving her hands over Shepard's hips. She can't feel Shepard's warm breath through her mask, but she can hear its soft rhythm. "I've been taking precautions," Tali says. "I've built up my defenses sufficiently for - for whatever you would like to do."

"For _whatever_ I would like to do?" Shepard runs her hand down Tali's sleeve and laces her fingers in Tali's. It's a human gesture of affection. They call it _holding hands._ Shepard's two extra fingers hang off the end of their joined fist.

As they walk to Shepard's quarters, Shepard says, "Dr. Solus helped me build an antimicrobial energy field around my bed. It's a little glitchy, but it should hold up."

"You told Dr. Solus about us? He doesn't exactly seem trustworthy."

"He has no reason to betray us," Shepard says, hinting at a certainty she's not at liberty to explain. "And he _loves_ secret research assignments."

In Shepard's cabin, Shepard guides Tali to the bed. "I'll activate the field." She steps back, outside the field while Tali sits inside, feet dangling off the bed so she doesn't track the blankets with her boots. "Is it all right if I watch while you take your suit off? I've waited for this more than anything."

"Is all this just an elaborate plot to see a naked quarian?" Tali teases.

"You know I wouldn't break your heart like that," Shepard says. 

Tali wasn't sure before, but she knows now. She takes off her helmet first, the clasps hissing as the seals break. She tugs the elastic band from her braid and shakes her hair free, letting it flow to her shoulders the way all quarians used to as a show of pride and status, now vainly imitated in the colorful cloths they attach to their helmets. She unbuckles her wrist guards so she can take off her gloves, then the locks that connect her chest piece to her abdominal plate. She fills her lungs with sweet air: the filter on her mask doesn't change its flavor, and her chest piece doesn't constrain her respiration, but breathing feels freer without them. She almost forgets to take off her boots and leggings, almost forgets that the best is yet to come.

Shepard steps through the energy field. It flashes, a dome of red light, until Shepard shuts the alarm off. Even though so much of her body is always exposed, she seems more demure about undressing than Tali. She peels off her off-duty jumpsuit like the air might melt her skin.

"Don't be afraid," Tali says, reaching out to touch Shepard's cheek, shivering at the intimacy of touch. 

"I guess when everyone walks around in a full-body suit, you don't think as much about your imperfections," Shepard says.

"I don't have any other humans to compare you to," Tali says. "And I've seen your face, so I know you're beautiful."

Shepard kisses Tali so hard she almost knocks Tali onto her back. She kisses like kissing is her birthright, like she has infinite kisses to give away, like they are as cheap as empty space. Quarian literature is full of tales about the lengths people will go to for a single kiss and the prices they pay afterward. Tali puts those stories out of her mind and kisses greedily.

Tali kneads Shepard's breasts, islands of softness rising from the hard muscle and scar tissue of Shepard's chest. She has a soldier's body, broad and solid even for a human. Shepard clutches at Tali's hair, nipping her neck with sharp little teeth, grinding a little against Tali's hip. She's wet already, painting a cool streak on Tali's skin. 

Tali freezes for a moment, remembering the barriers and disposable gloves she packed her pockets with, still stuffed into suit parts now disassembled and inside-out on Shepard's floor. Tali finds a legging and snaps open the pocket, awash with relief until she realizes she's only brought three-fingered gloves. Shepard picks one up and forces it on, squeezing two slim human fingers into holes meant for a single thick quarian one. She makes a "V" with her paired fingers, looks at the odd gesture, and laughs. 

"I think it'll work, after all," Tali says.

"It's a reference to an old human story," Shepard explains. "From before space travel, predicting what aliens would be like."

"Were the predictions terribly inaccurate?"

"Not in the big picture. We guessed that the galaxy would be full of dangers and conflicts, but that sentient species would work together to overcome them." Shepard taps the tip of Tali's ear. "And we knew you'd have funny ears."

"You're the ones with the funny ears," Tali says. She flicks one of the big, round lobes with her tongue, then sucks harder. Shepard sighs with pleasure. Tali rolls Shepard gently onto her back and plunges her tongue into Shepard's mouth, giddy at the taste of her lips. She bows her head down to kiss between Shepherd's breasts and down her firm belly.

Human women have two lips of flesh where quarians have keratin ridges. They've evolved softness and sensitivity instead of a protective gate. Beyond those, Shepard is reassuringly like a quarian: the swollen red knot of her clitoris, the slick membrane of her vagina that yields as Tali teases her fingers inside. Shepard rides Tali's fingers, squeezing around them as if to wring all possible pleasure out of them, arching upward to press her clit against Tali's thumb. Her orgasm is a universal language of screams and shudders.

Shepard goes still, her eyes half closed, her smile far away. Tali rests her head on Shepard's chest. Shepard embraces her and rolls so they are lying on their sides, face to face. She kisses the tip of Tali's nose. "How are you feeling?" Shepard asks.

Tali realizes it's an inquiry into her health. She covers her irritation at that by saying, "Loved."

Shepard kisses Tali's lips, then her neck and breasts, so delicately that it tickles. "I'm not made of glass," Tali says.

Shepard looks up at her. "No, you're one of the toughest people I know." She rakes her fingernails down Tali's back and sucks hard on Tali's nipple. The sting makes Tali feel bright and alive. She's ready for Shepard to make her come, but she wants to wait, to immerse herself in Shepard's touch. 

Shepard tests Tali's clit with a finger, and Tali's hips jerk up forcefully, beyond her control. Shepard takes a moment to adjust - the barrier and the ridges must both be more than she's used to - but when her tongue strokes Tali's clit, Tali could mistake her for an expert. Tali comes fast and roughly. 

She stays in Shepard's arms for a few minutes but knows she needs to go scrub herself down and put antibiotic salve on her scratched-up back. As Tali puts her environmental suit back on, Shepard watches as intensely as when she took it off, but more gravely. It's as if, watching her disappear into the suit, Shepard feels she is losing her.

"What's wrong?" Tali says.

"It might be a suicide mission," Shepard says. "I think we can beat the Reapers, but I'm not sure we can fly out the other side."

"I think we'll do fine," Tali says. She fastens her helmet with a comforting pop of airtight suction. "I think we're tougher than we look."


End file.
